What Is a Fasted Hunt With a Locked Yeti?

Bill Thompson and his friends run fasted hunts by locking food in a Yeti until someone makes a kill. They pack a cooler with drinks, food, and salads, lock the Yeti, and leave the code with one of the wives. She keeps the code until they send a photo of a doe or a buck. Until the photo arrives, the hunters drink salt water and go without food for two or three days.

On past trips, five or six of them hunted together, so a kill usually came in the first couple of days. The shortest wait was 36 hours. Bill Thompson thinks the longest stretch was four days. Except for one time, they have always killed within three days. Joe Rogan asked whether hunting wears a person down quicker. Bill Thompson says that by day three he is hurting. He also fasts on his own each quarter. The shortest of his quarterly fasts is usually two or three days and the longest is seven days.

When a text says a doe is down, they send the photo and open the cooler beside a fire where five or six people still have not eaten. Bill Thompson says the relief is strong enough that he wants to cry, and the day feels like the best day ever.